A wish of If only
by Master of the AUs
Summary: Irregularity can manifest in a variety of ways. At the verge of death, Allen Avadonia makes a desperate wish, and finds himself in Lucifenia, before the revolution. And this time, he will do things his way. Time-travel.


Allen Avadonia hit the ground running.

His feet pounded the ground of the dead world, thighs burning with exertion. Blood ran down the side of his face from the gash on his head. Teeth sawblade-sharp were biting at his lungs. No, bones, those were his bones. What should have been his bones.

The Hunt for the Deadly Sins had begun, and of course, he didn't have a better idea than to buy his sister time just like before, leaving behind Nemesis, leaving the plan behind.

No one would die (except the sinners).

That was the test of faith.

It wasn't difficult to alter his appearance, that had been how he had died after all. How Riliane managed to run in that dress was a question in his mind.

But it had worked. They were chasing him instead of his sister. Like it had been, like it should be, like it always would be.

He saw movement in his peripheral. Allen cursed under his breath. He had to be faster, faster, faster, buy her more time.

Intending to lose them, Allen staggered over the debris, slip-sliding. His foot plunged through a puddle, deeper than he first thought. Caught on something, the momentum carried him down and Allen went sprawling, his right knee striking the rubble with a gunshot-loud crack.

He lay panting against the ground, the coppery tang of blood sitting thick and salty on the back of his tongue.

Breath short; pain cutting off his air; cutting off his thinking, could souls die–

Darkness swept over him. The voices of his pursuers rattled in his skull, far too close for comfort and a thorny thread of panic shrilled within him. Allen clawed his way back to consciousness.

A sudden cloud of dust rose from the ground behind him, as he heard a gunshot. No, no, he couldn't die like this!

Move! he snarled at himself, rage and fear warring for dominance.

There were a thousand different ways in which things could have gone wrong.

He understood the idea of alternate timelines and the 'what ifs' of alternate universes. Because really, in his time in the BLACKBOX he had thought about it a lot, the possibilities were endless. A thousand different choices for a thousand different situations in a thousand different realities – his over-active imagination often led him to escapism. What if he had been King instead, what if he had escaped with Riliane. What if he had escaped the BLACKBOX, what if he had met with his twin when he was Kokutandouji. What if the world had actually ended with the bomb. But it didn't necessarily mean they were any better than reality.

In one version, his reunion with his sister gets cut short. The witch possesses her, and it's up to him to help her. Good triumphs over evil with a healthy dose of luck. Happy endings for everyone except for an unlucky few. But that isn't what happens.

In another, MA is quicker on the draw. He watches her get all the sins with the knowledge that none of them are coming back. His sister is never coming back. Everything is ending around him. Sanity is a tentative thing at this point. A chancy combination of luck and Irregularity later, Allen gets close and takes MA out along with himself. The world is desolate. But that isn't what happens.

In another timeline, Allen goes with Behemo. He gains power, exploiting his ability of not being bound by the world's rules. At the world's reset, he gets elected the new Master of the Heavenly Yard. He passes his time watching every incarnation of his sister. But that isn't what happens.

Or: Behemo makes him an offer. He was a never stupid man and he recognizes early on the futility of continuing the war. Allen's freedom, his sister's and everyone else's in exchange for Allen's loyalty. He takes it. The Twin Gods slowly destroy the world. Riliane and Allen reincarnate numerous times, and everything seems to be going well. For them, that is. But that isn't what happens.

In one particularly morbid version, the war never ensues. In this daydream, Allen is cut off from everyone else. In that damned cube. No Sickle to talk to because Allen may be desperate, but he's not masochistic. The isolation takes its toll. And an undetermined amount of time later, Allen gives up. He's a kid. Sickle is not. He misses Riliane desperately, but he can't escape from this. Let the Gods clean up their own messes for once.

But that wasn't what happened.

The reality, as it turned out, could be far different than anything he could have imagined.

There was no warning. No frogs falling from the sky, no sheets of fire raining down, no water turning to blood. The Apocalypse had already happened.

When it came down to it, Allen never expected to die (again). Oh sure, he had died without regrets the first time, but that didn't mean he was okay with it. And given that he was, for all accounts, already dead, he had fancied himself sort untouchable.

Invincible.

Unconquerable.

But he should have realized, pride always did come before a fall. Like sister, like brother.

He was surrounded. He couldn't move. His illusionary clothing, the dress that he had worn when he went willingly to his death, vanished and left him in his normal clothes. There was silence around him as the truth sunk in, they had been tricked, had been chasing a double, and now the gardener's army was far away from its real objective. Allen started to laugh, blood dripping from his mouth and smearing over his throat and chin.

He didn't want to die that way, defeated, without having seen his sister one last time.

 _And I have lost everything. If only, I had made things right._

But if he had no choice, then at least he was going to take them down with him. **"Saa, hajimeyou."**

The world was ending, and he was ending, and at least, she would live. Red-orange streaks of light left spots in his vision. He felt himself fading.

And the world exploded in light.

* * *

 _He was surrounded by blackness, thick and strong and pressing in on him at all sides. It was quiet too, the loud kind of quiet that announced he was all alone and made him want to rip out his ears just so he wouldn't have to listen to it._

 _Is this the BLACKBOX?_

 _Let me out._

 _I just want to see my sister._

 _Maybe he had tried to scream, but he didn't have a voice, nor a body or hands to scratch and claw at the nothingness with. There was just himself and the blackness, a bodiless mind drifting and screaming to himself._

 _I want to see her again! I want to make things right between us! I want-_

There was something infinitely frightening about the moment when he crossed the boundary between sleep and wakefulness. His mind simultaneously lunging towards wakefulness and desperately grasping at the last remaining strands of cobwebbed dreams. It was almost like dying.

Allen came to with a quick, startled inhalation.

A bright light hit his eyes, meeting a plain white ceiling.

For a moment, he was too shocked at being alive to do anything.

Then, half-blinded, furious with adrenaline and panic, Allen found himself on his feet. He closed his eyes when he was overcome with a sudden wave of dizziness.

But other than that... He blinked the spots from his vision, feeling remarkably well. In fact, there was a distinct lack of pain; no shards of bones that were once his ribs jabbing into his lungs, no tang of blood on his breath.

There was a bed behind him, and over there, in a corner, a dresser with the door slightly ajar, and inside it, clothes and his sword. The ribbon he used to tie his hair. His servant uniform resting on a chair. Outside, there was the familiar view of Lucifenia.

He wobbled in place, vertigo almost taking his feet out from under him, making him sit back down on the bed. He swallowed; sweat dripping down his face.

There was something very, very wrong here.

This was his room. This was his room from the Lucifenian palace, when he was a servant, right down to the very last, half-remembered detail. He should be dead. Even if the gardener's men had managed to capture him, he doubted they would have dropped him off in Lucifenia of all places. The sky was really the sky, and not the endless abyss of the dead world.

An unlikely possibility began taking root in his mind, branching off. His cheeks went warm with excitement. Allen laughed, bewildered and feverish.

If he didn't know better, he would say he was in the Lucifenia of before, in his Lucifenia, where he had spent his days serving the Princess. Where he had done things he had regretted. Now, he didn't want to rush his thought process, especially because he hadn't left his room as of yet, but...

He was an Irregular, surely that was one of the things he could do?

Wasn't it what life was, cheating the system and winning the stakes?

He had to check the date, but... if he had somehow gone back in time...enough far back...

He had been put in the BLACKBOX because of his nature as an Irregular. Surely, the safest thing would be to let events play out as they're supposed to.

Could he honestly say he regretted any of it?

He hadn't wanted to die—he really hadn't—but he would do it all again in a heartbeat.

Maybe.

Allen clenched his teeth. He was exactly at the center of the world's remaining lifespan. That was the era of pleasure-seeking. That was the era of nihilistic devolution. To hell with the world, with heaven, to hell with hell.

He would make things right. He would, he would, he swore would.

Allen knew what would happen. He could not kill Leonhart. He could prevent Michaela's death. He could stop the revolution from ever coming to pass. He wouldn't have to die at fourteen. He wouldn't have to spend interminable years trapped in the BLACKBOX. He could save Riliane.

His thoughts stopped to a halt.

Riliane.

Who was possessed by a demon, a demon who gave her the capability of being cruel. He was the puppet, and she the puppeteer, and another, demonic puppeteer controlling her. That was a terrifying thought. There was a dark madness within his sister, he was certain he would be able to see it if he knew where to look. He loved her anyway, missed with all his heart. He couldn't wait to see her again.

He had to get ready, start the day, and start planning, too. How to free her from the demon, how to erase some events from history.

Of course, there was also the possibility of this being his dying dream, the last hope of his splintered mind.

But if dreams couldn't come true, then why not pretend?


End file.
